Friday, August 8, 2014

It's been about six months since I updated Apocalypse POW! and I wanted to take a few minutes to explain what happened, and what the future looks like for the blog.

Back in March, I decided to take a brief hiatus from updating, as my day job suddenly included a number of new responsibilities and time demands. I didn't know if that would be a temporary or permanent thing at the time, so I didn't bother putting up an explanation on the blog; I thought it might be two weeks or a month at most and then I would get back to regular daily entries.

Obviously, it turned out to be a permanent thing. I went from doing about four hours of real work a day to between eight and twelve, and Apocalypse POW! fell by the wayside as a matter of course. I also realized that, while I had enjoyed running this blog for almost eight years (my first post was back in 2006, although I didn't start updating it on a regular basis until 2010), it had moved away from my original intent to focus on videogame-inspired art and culture and more towards a general, retro-tinged pop-culture art blog. There's nothing wrong with that, but I came to the conclusion that I was no longer trying to fill a niche and was instead doing what dozens of other blogs out there were doing (indeed, I had a bookmark list of similar blogs as long as my arm that I would check daily for post ideas). Ultimately, Apocalypse POW! rendered itself superfluous.

In January of 2012, I reached a peak monthly hitrate of about 28,000 unique page views. I'm still getting about 350 page views a day, which is all the more impressive since I haven't updated in half a year. There are people out there (mostly coming from Google searches) who enjoy what I've put up, but it feels like a relatively self-sustaining thing at this point, and continuing to add to it - especially when I don't really have the time in my life to do so - feels unnecessary.

I haven't completely given up on Apocalypse POW!, and one day I may come back to it. When I do, it'll likely take a new form. I'd like to shift back to basics and really focus on people making amazing videogame art, and discuss the street-level culture around videogames. I'd like to revise the design of the site, take it off of Blogger and host it independently, and try to build it out in terms of community. For the time being, though, I won't be updating anymore. Time will tell where I decide to take things in the future.

I love the detail on this. Everything from the corpse flopping around on Moses' back to alien's glowing mouths. I want Paul Robertson to animate literally every scene from every movie ever. Only then will my life be complete.

Friday, March 7, 2014

For my 1,000th post on Apocalypse POW!, I wanted to discuss a topic that has been on a lot of people’s minds of late: the fate and future of Nintendo, especially following their dismal quarterly report and the fallout that has resulted from that.

These are trying times for Nintendo. Revenue dipped 8.1% in the last few months. Satoru Iwata, the company’s CEO, is taking a 50% pay cut for the next five months (the second time he’s done so in the past three years). An underwhelming 2.41 million Wii Us have been sold, compared to a projected 9 million units sold. Nintendo’s stock plummeted a few weeks ago when their revenue report was released. Many are predicting the end of House Mario.

In retrospect, it’s pretty obvious how Nintendo got to this point, and what it comes down to is this: Nintendo overestimated the value of gimmicks over horsepower, misread the nature of their consumer base, and chose to self-identify more strongly with past successes than with a progressive vision of their future as a contender. Their failure is based in large part on their steadfast refusal to “play the game” and compete with Sony and Microsoft, not to mention the mobile market and the PC market, believing instead that they had carved out their own exclusive, loyal niche of brand consumers.

I'm far from the world's biggest anime fan, but these three rank amongst my favorites. Just started Attack on Titan and I have to say that I'm impressed so far. The Titans are far less adorable than Matt Reedy presents them, though. They're actually pretty horrifying.